Elsewhere in Paperbag Stories you will find some of the names above: Jo; Val and Monique, perhaps disguised a little but recognisable. Anne and Pat have, so far, been no go areas of my auto-fictional life. Both I treated badly at the end of our relationships, though the former had it coming and we were twelve years into our relationship when it happened. 48 years later and the scars still haven’t healed, so it will be a while before you learn about the end. What you have here is the beginning and all the signs were there, but we have the years 1959 to 1962 to make our way through before we reach 1963.
The relationships I had were never straightforward and on the fringes there were many snogs and gropes with other girls, where one of us, or both, misread the signs.
As for my paperbag map, it conveys a very personal world. It is neither to scale or geographically accurate. Where I lived was akin to a British postage stamp. Both were there. Neither needed a name, but just in case Wembley means nothing to you, it has, since 1965 been part of Greater London and the national home of English football since 1923.
Robert Howard 🐰
See also https://mywembley.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-fifties-childhood.html
Love and Life Close Up